Farmhouse ale festival 2016

Last year the first ever festival wholly dedicated to farmhouse ale
(I think), Norsk Kornølfestival
2016, was held in Hornindal in western Norway. "Kornøl" is the
local name for farmhouse ale, so the name really means "Norwegian
farmhouse ale festival," and that's what it was.

The best kind of beer festival, I've found, is where the drinking
public is at least as interesting as the commercial brewers and the
speakers. And this was definitely that kind of festival. For one
thing, farmhouse brewers are not like modern home brewers. They are
country people, not hipsters or IT professionals. And the beer
enthusiasts who travelled to the festival were not your average beer
drinkers, either.

And then there were the locals, many of whom went to the festival
because it provided a rare chance for a "night out" in a village that
has no pub. They could have a couple of beers, chat with other locals,
listen to some nice music, and maybe even dance a little. This mix of
commercial brewers, farmhouse brewers, modern home brewers, beer
history buffs, and random locals, was surprisingly enjoyable.

The Espe family, with bowls of kveik

For me, the star attraction of the festival was without question
the farmhouse brewers. Finding a farmhouse brewer used to take
months of painful searching. Here there were
10 of them, all nicely lined up next to each other, ready to serve
their beer and talk about it. Quite a few of them had even brought
their kveik.

Except, as it turned out, since I was selling my book and doing a
talk, I barely had time to talk to them, or taste their beer. I'm not
complaining, because the people dropping by my table had lots of
fascinating stories to tell. Many of them were farmhouse brewers who
didn't bother serving beer at the festival, but still came by to taste
the beers and talk to others.

One guy told me he had been a modern home brewer for over 40 years,
but even though he lived in western Norway he'd only ever tried two
farmhouse ales before coming to the festival. That tells you something
about how amazingly obscure these beers have been. And now he'd tasted
12.

Another brewer, Jarle Nupen, dropped by to tell me the story of how
he learned to brew kornøl in nearby Eidsdal in 1979. The old man who
taught him brewing also gave him his kveik, "which I have watched like
gold ever since." He happily gave me a sample, but unfortunately we're
still waiting for the analysis results. He'd also tried modern ale
yeast from a local craft brewery. "That stuff took 24 hours to get
going," he said, shaking his head.

Demonstration brewing, Lars Andreas Tomasgård talking

Then, suddenly, I was told I needed to judge the home brews as part
of the offical judge panel. That was a real blessing, because now I
was actually able to taste the beers. And, as so often, it was quite
an experience. The farmhouse brewers were all from Hornindal, except
one, and their beers had a clear family resemblance. They really all
belonged to a single style, which I've
called kornøl: pale, sweetish, fruity,
low-carbonation, a good bit of sugar, raw ales, little hops, 6-8%
alcohol (at a guess).

And then, in the middle of the sequence of blind-tasted farmhouse
ales there was one that was deep dark red and powerfully smoky. It was
impossible not to realize that this was
a stjørdalsøl. And since there was only one of
those at the festival, the brewer could only be
Roar Sandodden. Knowing who the brewer was felt
a little iffy, but there was no way to avoid it, since the beer itself
gave it away.

One strange thing was that some of the kornøl were acidic, and some
were not. I'd actually been warned about this,
two years before, that some people in Hornindal not only brewed sour
beer, but that they thought this was perfectly fine. Questioning the
brewers afterwards I found that, yes, indeed, they saw no problem with
the beer being sour. But Terje Raftevold would
pour out his beer if it turned sour, so this was definitely not
something everyone agreed on.

Lars Andreas Tomasgård serving kornøl to William Holden

Before starting the judging the three of us decided we needed to
set some ground rules, since none of us had ever judged a farmhouse
brewing competition before. We decided that anything that tasted
modern (high CO2, US-style hops, dark porter-type malts, etc) would be
considered out of style, and penalized. We also decided that we
couldn't very well tell the locals that we had decided sour farmhouse
ale was necessarily wrong. Obviously the people actually living in the
tradition would have to have the final word on this. So we decided to
accept some acidity, provided it tasted subjectively good.

Top three entries:

#1: Larstunet bryggeri, consisting of Lars Andreas Tomasgård
and one brewer whose name I never caught. Classic kornøl, with a
lovely juniper aroma, and clear taste of boiled juniper, moss, and
earth, with milky caramel and light touches of fruit and smoke. Hints
of lemon, but no real acidity. A very good beer, and very easy to
drink.

#2: Stalljen, brewed by Stig Stalljen together with a Håkon
whose last name I didn't get, either. (I really need to take better
notes this year.) Clear mushroomy juniper aroma. Acidic, again with
that lemon hint, and the acid really emphasized the juniper and made
it pop out in the initial flavour. Fresh juniper and wet forest type
of flavour on top of the usual fruity raw ale flavours. Full body,
despite the acid. (Note that this beer was acidic, not sour. pH 3.95.)

#3: William Holden. This was a rather unusual beer that
wasn't like any of the others at the festival. Taste of peas, earth,
and a good, bitter orange aftertaste. We noted that there was no clear
raw ale profile, which isn't so surprising in retrospect, because
William did boil the wort. So this was more of a modern type of
kornøl.

The rest of the list had more kornøl, one stjørdalsøl, and some
modern homebrews. Some of the kornøl were acidic, and not all of them
in a good way. Of course, this happens with modern homebrewing, too.

Stig Stalljen with a jug of beer. Rustesko on the left.

The festival also had modern craft brewers serving their beers, and
I have to admit that felt a little strange, since none of them were
serving anything that was even close to a farmhouse ale. Nobody seemed
to mind, though, and they were doing a brisk trade after the home
brewers stopped serving. (Norwegian licensing regulations forbid
selling commercial beer and giving away homebrew at the same time.)

This year the commercial brewers have to have at least one beer
with at least one farmhousey thing about it (kveik, juniper, raw ale,
...) in order to participate. The good thing is that this year that's
a requirement the festival can set, without winding up with only 2-3
breweries. That's actually quite a lot of progress in 12 months, if
you think about it.

Anyway, for me, the highlight of the festival was the people I got
to meet and talk to, and all the stories they had to tell. I talked a
good bit with Ole Bjørn Ese,
from Sogn, a boiled
beer area, south of the glacier. He didn't brew, he said, but he was
thinking of starting, so this festival visit was a kind of "industrial
espionage," as he put it.

Kveik floating in the demonstration brew

He comes from the small town Balestrand, where a couple of decades
ago, there was only a single farmhouse brewer left. The brewer got
cancer and realized he didn't have long left, so he announced to the
village that if anyone wanted to learn the old-school brewing he was
willing teach them, so that the brewing didn't die out.

The good news was that he got a volunteer. The bad news was that it
was a woman. Reportedly, she was told that women in the brewhouse
meant sour beer, so he wouldn't teach her. That may sound strange, but
this is an ancient superstition in the area, and the brewer was
entirely serious. The next day he regretted saying no, because he
realized that either she was going to learn, or nobody was, so he
decided to teach her, after all.

They brewed together twice. The second time the old brewer was so
weak he could no longer stir the mash. That gives you some idea how
important he thought it was. She really did learn, and I was told that
she still lives in Balestrand, and still brews the traditional
beer. That doesn't exactly mean the brewing is on a firm footing, so I
hope Ole Bjørn has visited her and learned to brew from her so that
more people can keep the local brewing tradition alive.

It was a good reminder of why this festival is important: these
beers have one foot in the grave, and something needs to be done to
prevent millennia of brewing tradition from dying out in the middle of
the craft beer revolution. This festival is one of the things being
done.

Nearby Hjørundfjord

2017

There will be a festival this year, too, 29-30 September, in
Hornindal. There will be farmhouse brewers serving their beers,
commercial breweries serving farmhouse-inspired beers, talks, and
demonstration brewing. This year there will two Lithuanians showing
stone brewing a la Andrioniškis on the Friday, and stjørdalsøl brewing
on the Saturday. There will also be a demonstration
of Stjørdal-style malting.

If you're interested, see the festival home page. Hornindal is not the easiest place to get
to, but the festival can help you arrange transport and a place to
stay if you contact them
on Facebook.

Full disclosure

I was shanghaied into being one of the organizers of this festival,
so I may be somewhat biased. I've only been a minor figure in making
it happen, though. It was really William Holden, who started the whole
thing and did most of the preparations. He is from the region, but not
from Hornindal. Physically making the festival happen was mostly taken
care of by Ståle Raftevold and other people from Hornindal.

Horndøla bridge, higher up the Hornindal valley, with
Hornindalsrokken in the background

I would love to visit the Hornindal festival but unfortunately it clashes with a traditional knitting (Gansey) symposium that I sm speaking at. I look forward to the 2018 fest with interest. I hope this year's is a great success.